Gerry Read - Shrubby

Gerry Read - Shrubby
You'd hardly expect Gerry Read to be able sit still long enough to write something suitably straightforward and floor-filling for Will Saul's Aus Music. But with "Shrubby" he's done it—and Redshape has provided two remixes that send it right back down the rabbit hole.

The original has a determined thud and a Bicep-esque vocal, as if Read is trying his best to nail down a no-bullshit retro house groove. His penchant for weirdness is left to the chords, which shimmy awkwardly just a step behind the beat. Redshape's "Not So Serious" remix sound trippy by comparison. He lays down a pedestrian beat and then lets compressed bits of the original stutter and spray out wildly. Essentially built on spasmodic glitching, it's hard not to imagine its exaggerated effects on a druggy afterhours dance floor. His "Disco Scope" version recasts "Shrubby" as a tough techno tool, but is hard to take seriously with its pitched-down-to-hell vocals and thinly stretched chords.

Read dips into disco mode with "Zig Zag." This one cracks its own foundations wide open for more spastic bursts of melody, before snapping back into a tight groove. Shrubby might be Read's most accessible work, but it's not his most exciting.